Lens effects and Distortions

All lenses have a little distortion due to their imperfections. But these aside all lenses have a certain distance-range that they can cover without distorting too much of the picture.The telephoto lens have the least amount of distortion. This is mainly because they do not capture much of a scene on one picture. You might want to use telephoto lenses if you are about to capture a texture of a brick wall and do not want curves.What is the reason? Why a lens with smaller viewing angle have less distortion? It's quite simple: if you scan a document, the scanner sensor is perpendicular to the scanned image. With lenses, the way of light is not perpendicular, but has quite some angle in it. The less this angle it is, the less distortion you will get with your lenses.Medium size lenses can be used fine for most scenes but they are best at medium distances from about 1 m to around 10-50meters. If you take a very close portrait you will notice some fishbowl effect. These lenses are not so much good at landscape photography as they only have an average field of view.Landscape or wide-angle lenses have the most distortion because they try to capture more of the scene into the same image size. However these lenses can often capture a large angle e.g.: all the way up to 180°s.There is another term for lens-effects that is called compression. This appears on an image when you take a picture of something from a distance with a very long lens (~100+mms). The lens compresses everything it sees into the picture, this way the image sometimes can become quickly crowded.

Room photo taken with wide angle lens

Medium or Wide-angle lens distort things that are shot from short distance

Bookcase without distortion - medium focal length used for interior photos
(you will have to distant yourself from the target)